Posts Tagged ‘anti-zionism’

An Israeli speaker’s talk at a London college campus scheduled for this week was canceled on Wednesday. Why? Because, according to the cancelation notice sent by the student union, “there had been controversy” when he spoke at the campus two years prior, and the hosting organization failed to disclose that when the room was booked for the talk.

After cries of suppression of speech and vehement protests, the university stepped in and “un”canceled the talk. Hen Mazzig’s talk at University College, London, was reinstated. It would take place, as scheduled, on Thursday evening, Oct. 27.

The response by the anti-Israel mob was swift and the attack was vicious. A protest was called. Outside the room where Mazzig was scheduled to speak, livid demonstrators screamed for murder and the end of Israel. “Intifada, Intifada!” and “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free!” They barred the entrance to the talk while pummeling the doors and windows, leering malevolently. Two thugs yanked open a window, hurling themselves into the room, launching several students inside into panic attacks. A woman inside kept repeating: “This is like the Warsaw Ghetto!”

The prelude and the coda of this minuet reveals volumes about the campus wars being waged against anything Israel these days.

Let’s start at the beginning: Hen (pronounced Khen, with the throat-scraping sound most non-Israelis find unpronounceable) Mazzig is a 27 year old Israeli who completed his army service four years ago. Since that time Mazzig has been speaking to audiences, especially on U.S. college campuses, about Israel. Mazzig is an educator who wants non-Israelis to understand his tiny country and his fellow countrymen. He is soft-spoken with a recognizable, but comprehensible, Israeli accent.

When Mazzig first started speaking to college students back in 2013, he was shocked by the vitriol directed against Israel by some American college students, professors and community members. Even Jewish ones.

In 2013, Mazzig wrote an epic cri de coeur, calling on American Jews to “Wake Up!” He was horrified to learn that Israel’s enemies are not just the hostile Arab nations surrounding his tiny country. “It is also here in America, where a battle must be waged against prejudice and lies. I implore American Jews to do more.”

This time around Mazzig is more sanguine about the atmosphere on U.S. campuses. He told the JewishPress.com that he is “happy that I was able to bring my voice into the conversation, to help raise awareness.”

There is now ample funding to fight the scourge he urged Jewish leadership to recognize a few years back, the movement known as BDS, Mazzig told the JewisPress.com. But the recognition of BDS as a symptom of the underlying illness is still too attenuated, including by Jewish leadership. “BDS is only a symptom of the disease which is the same old hatred – anti-Semitism.”

That hatred of Jews and, by extension the Jewish state, is what fuels BDS and other symptoms is made clear by the response to Mazzig in London last night.

The original effort to shut down Thursday night’s speech was based on a “controversy” surrounding a talk he gave in 2014 at Kings College, London. But that controversy was one created solely by anti-Israel protesters, not by Mazzig. In fact, the video and public statement posted by the protesters reveal that disrupting Mazzig’s talk and the walkout were planned in advance. The protest was not about anything Mazzig said — it was about the fact that any former IDF soldier was allowed to speak on campus at all.

Again at Thursday night’s event the protest was fueled simply by anti-Israel animus. Pro-Israel female students were assaulted on their way to the event. Many who sought entrance to the speech were barred by the protesters, those who gained admittance were prevented from leaving without a choreographed police escort.

But here’s the rub: while the haters did their best to prevent him from speaking, they did so without realizing that in his message and in his essence, Mazzig is the ultimate slayer of untruths about Israel.

For one thing, Mazzig’s family hails from Tunisia and Iraq – he is one of those “brown bodies” people love to claim Israel oppresses. For another thing, Mazzig was an openly gay commander in the Israeli army, where being gay raises no eyebrows, let alone scaffolds. Next on the list: Mazzig served in the COGAT unit. COGAT works with the Palestinian Authority to coordinate activities in order to improve the lives of the Arabs living in the territories.

During his IDF service Mazzig focused on protecting everyone, “coordinating humanitarian aid, and tending to the needs of civilians” living in the territories, Jewish and Arab, he explained. Mazzig and his unit worked feverishly “in a special operation conducted in the middle of the night” to unite an Arab Gazan orphan with an uncle in Ramallah, so that the boy “would not be left alone on the streets of the Gaza Strip.”

And the title of Mazzig’s speech at UCL, back in 2014? “The Hope for Peace: Promoting Peace While in Uniform.”

When the thugs were pounding on the doors and windows and shouting that Mazzig is a “murderer,” they were, albeit unknowingly, attempting to silence a speaker who understands Israel in ways they really must prevent the world from learning about. Otherwise, anyone who is not automatically a hater will realize that the throngs of illiberal thugs attempting to block free speech are the real roadblocks to peace.

Speaking from London following the event, Mazzig told the JewishPress.com:

I was standing in the room, trying to calm the Jewish students, while the mob outside was banging on the doors, on the windows, and calling for intifada. I knew this was not normal, nobody should have to endure this.

But neither Mazzig nor his talk’s sponsor, the media watchdog group CAMERA, were deterred.

Responding to pressure from dozens of Jewish and education advocacy organizations who over the past few weeks have expressed their objections to a blatantly anti-Israel and anti-Semitic course titled, “Palestine: A settler Colonial Analysis,” that was being offered by UC Berkeley, the school announced it would suspend the course because it was not adequately vetted to ensure that it met Berkeley’s academic standards.

In a letter to Tammi Rossman Benjamin, director of AMCHA Initiative, who coordinated the protest effort, an assistant to UC Berkeley’s Chancellor Nicholas Dirks, wrote:

“It has been determined that the facilitator for the course in question did not comply with policies and procedures that govern the normal academic review and approval of proposed courses for the Decal program. As a result, the proposed course did not receive a sufficient degree of scrutiny to ensure that the syllabus met Berkeley’s academic standards before it was opened for enrollment to students. For that reason, approval for the course has been suspended pending completion of the mandated review and approval process. It should also be noted that the Executive Dean of the College of Letters and Science is very concerned about the offering of any course, even a student-run course, which espouses a single political viewpoint and/or appears to offer a forum for political organizing rather than an opportunity for the kind of open academic inquiry that Berkeley is known for.”

The September 13 letter from 43 Jewish, civil rights and education advocacy organizations to Chancellor Dirks said, among other things: “We believe that this course violates the Regents Policy on Course Content, which specifically prohibits using the classroom ‘as an instrument for the advance of partisan interest’ or for ‘political indoctrination.’ Furthermore, it appears that compliance with the Regents Policy is not even a requirement of the present procedure for vetting DeCal courses, allowing for the unbridled misuse of the classroom by politically motivated instructors. This state of affairs requires rectification.”

The letter suggested that the offending course’s objectives, reading materials and guest speakers were politically motivated, and met the US government’s criteria for anti-Semitism, in an effort to “indoctrinate students to hate the Jewish state and take action to eliminate it.”

The course learning objectives made it clear that a key goal of the class was to encourage students to accept unquestioningly the false and defamatory idea that Israel is an illegitimate settler colonial state, the letter argued, noting that “by the end of the course students are required to have ‘researched, formulated, and presented decolonial alternatives to the current situation,’ which, in the context of the other course objectives, means that a significant part of the course will be devoted to thinking about ways to ‘decolonize’ — that is, eliminate — Israel.”

The letter pointed out that Both guest speakers listed in the course syllabus, Keith Feldman and Hatem Bazian, have publicly supported an academic boycott of Israel, and Bazian, who is also the course’s faculty sponsor, “is himself a well-known leader of the anti-Israel boycott, divestment, sanctions (BDS) movement as well as campaigns to eliminate the Jewish state.”

“This is a great day for students at Berkeley,” wrote Benjamin in an email message Tuesday night, adding that “our classrooms should never be used to spew hate or push political propaganda aimed at indoctrinating students.”

Benjamin said she and the rest of the groups involved in the protest effort “applaud UC Berkeley’s Chancellor Dirks and his staff for their swift and appropriate response regarding this course,” cautioning that “there is still work to be done to ensure that all new courses at UC Berkeley are adequately reviewed for compliance with university policies prohibiting misuse of the classroom for political indoctrination.”

Human Rights Voices, an organization monitoring the United Nations, on Wednesday published a report titled, “UN Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs): Inciting Hatred, Antisemitism and Violence from the World Stage,” reporting that an examination of the 6,150 non-governmental organizations which have been “invited to participate on a year-round basis in UN activities, and have thus been handed a coveted global megaphone,” it appears that, “both by design and gross negligence on the part of UN member states, the NGOs’ ranks include bigots, anti-Semites, and terrorist advocates who are now spreading hatred and inciting violence from the world stage.”

According to the report, “accredited non-governmental organizations have been allowed to flaunt the core of the UN mission by advocating terror and intolerance. At the same time, they have been permitted to draw closer to the world of international diplomacy and gain access to the international media platforms associated with it.”

“Most striking for an organization founded on the ashes of the Holocaust, the UN enables its accredited NGOs to play a central role in promoting modern anti-Semitism,” charges Human Rights Voices, noting that “although the preamble of the UN Charter promises the equal rights of nations large and small, UN-accredited NGOs foster the destruction of the UN member state of Israel.”

The report says there are numerous examples of UN-accredited NGOs engaging in antisemitism, promoting violence and terror, demonizing the UN member state of Israel, and advocating its destruction. The report provides a range of examples of these activities. It notes that “regardless of when the materials were first disseminated, they continued to be distributed and made publicly accessible in 2016.” The report provides screenshots of the sources for every entry, with the examples drawn from a variety of sources: websites and other online presence of UN-accredited NGOs, statements made by UN-accredited NGOs at UN events, materials distributed by UN-accredited NGOs on UN premises, and material that is not only found on UN-accredited NGO websites but that is trumpeted via direct links located on UN websites.

Excerpt from “The Paradox of Using the Law of the Oppressor,” BADIL Resource Center for Palestinian Residency and Refugee Rights, Accredited with Special Consultative Status by ECOSOC, last accessed on August 15, 2016.

Here are a few examples from UN-accredited NGOs cited by the report:

“‘[T]errorism’ is a political term used by the colonizer to discredit those who resist as the Afrikaaners and Nazis named the Black and French freedom fighters, respectively…Armed resistance was used in the American Revolution, the Afghan resistance against Russia (which the U.S. supported), the French resistance against the Nazis, and even in the Nazi concentration camps, or, more famously, in the Warsaw Ghetto. Palestinian resistance arises out of a similarly oppressive situation…” (Excerpt from “The Palestinian Resistance; Its Legitimate Right and the Moral Duty,” If Americans Knew, Accredited by CEIRPP, last accessed on August 28, 2016)

“The main obstacle to the advancement of Zionism is the heroic daily resistance of the Palestinians, manifested in the recent “youth intifada”…Zionism instrumentalizes the memory of the Holocaust as a tool to legitimize war crimes…We must expose the fallacy of partition and the two-state solution…” (Excerpt from – “BDS: exposing the contradications of Zionism,” Alternatives, Action and Communication Network for International Development, Accredited by CEIRPP, last accessed on August 25, 2016)

“Never forget or forgive! We will fight until total liberation of #Palestine from the River to the Sea! #Nakba67” (Excerpt from Facebook Page Entry: “Al-Awda, May 15, 2015,” Al-Awda, The Palestine Right To Return Coalition, Accredited by CEIRPP, last accessed on August 25, 2016)

“I have walked through the killing fields of Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon and Sri Lanka and seen death close up…I have never before witnessed one group of people deriving so much pleasure and joy from inflicting so much pain and suffering on another group of people including their babies and infants. The injustice that is Palestine is there for all to see if only you will look…” (Excerpt from “The Palestinian Nakba, 1948-2008: 60 Years of Catastrophe,” Friends of Al-Aqsa, Accredited by CEIRPP, last accessed on August 28, 2016)

Excerpt from “Gaza – One Year On,” Islamic Human Rights Commission, Accredited with Special Consultative Status by ECOSOC and accredited by CEIRPP, last accessed on August 25, 2016.

“[T]oday the Gaza Strip cannot anymore [sic] considered just as an open air prison. It has become a concentration camp…” (Excerpt from “Oral statement by the American Association of Jurists to the UN Human Rights Council, Agenda Item 7, March 23, 2015,” American Association of Jurists, Accredited with Special Consultative Status by ECOSOC, last accessed on August 25, 2016)

“The most important feeling is when you feel your soul and the souls of the people you love are so cheap, and your suffering and your blood so cheap, and there is only one blood and soul that is holy, which is Israeli Jews, you just lose your mind.” (Excerpt from “NGO Action News, July 18, 2014,” Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, Accredited with Special Consultative Status by ECOSOC and accredited by CEIRPP, last accessed on August 25, 2016)

“This year uncovered, for the first time, the practice of extracting human organs from killed Palestinians whose bodies were in the hands of Israeli forces and the sale of these organs.” (Excerpt from “2011 — Palestine: Hopes, Frustrations and Hypocrisy,” International Organization for the Elimination of all Forms of Racial Discrimination (EAFORD), Accredited with Special Consultative Status by ECOSOC, last accessed August 25, 2016)

“The deliberate targeting of Palestinian children has become a notable feature of the Israeli occupation in the OPT [“Occupied Palestinian Territories”]…[T]he Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) have long killed, beaten, tortured, arrested and arbitrarily detained Palestinian children.” (Excerpt from “Special Focus on Palestinian Children: Targeting Palestine Through Its Future,” Al-Haq, Law in the Service of Man, Accredited with Special Consultative Status by ECOSOC, last accessed on August 25, 2016)

“Zionist ideology is the driving force behind the ongoing Palestinian reality of apartheid.” (Excerpt from “Zionist apartheid: a crime against humanity,” BADIL Resource Center for Palestinian Residency and Refugee Rights, Accredited with Special Consultative Status by ECOSOC, last accessed on August 25, 2016)

“To boost Israeli arms sales, Palestinian families have suffered three onslaughts of ‘systematic genocide’ wars in six years.” (Excerpt from “Saving Palestine’s Children Under The Arms Trade Treaty,” Third World Network, Accredited with Roster Status by ECOSOC and accredited by CEIRPP, last accessed on August 25, 2016)

by Ilana Messika
The Zionist Federation in Sweden organized its fifth annual rally on Sunday under the theme of “Taking Back Zionism” in order to attempt to re-acquaint the Swedish public with the original Zionist concept, so as to confront the term’s misappropriation by the media and state institutions.

“The main goal of the rally is to create a safe forum for Jews and non-Jews alike to safely declare their pro-Zionist sentiments,” Swedish Zionist Federation Director Saskia Pantell told Tazpit Press Service.

“The objective is also to re-educate the Swedish population about the meaning of Zionism as the basic human right of the Jewish People to self-determination in their historic homeland. As such, being a Zionist is not confined solely to the Jewish population, but to all political and religious streams,” she added.

“Jewish youth need Israel as a safe haven to secure the future of the Swedish Jewish community due to the direction that anti-Semitism is taking in our country,” elaborated Tojzner. “We have to be able to support Israel openly without fear of harassment.”

In a paper published in June 2016, Swedish scholars Lars Dencik and Karl Marosi noted a significant discrepancy between figures recorded by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) in 2013 and a survey of Swedish Jews conducted that year by the European Union Agency for Fundamental Human Rights (FRA).

The ADL claimed that four percent of the population in Sweden exhibited classic anti-Semitic stereotypes, while the FRA survey showed that 60 percent of Swedish Jews considered anti-Semitism to be a fairly-to-very big problem in their country.

The paper, published by Tel Aviv University’s Kantor Center for the Study of European Jewry, attributed the disparity to the fact that the criteria the ADL used to record anti-Semitism did not take into account what is now called “new anti-Semitism,” expressed in the form of opposition to Israel and the demonization of Zionism.

“I believe anti-Zionism is the new form of anti-Semitism and thus the institutional disdain for Zionism is actually an extension of classic Swedish anti-Semitism under the guise of political correctness,” Pantell declared.

“For example, most cases of hate crimes do not even make it to trial because they are dismissed beforehand as expressions of ‘anti-Zionism’ rather than expressions of anti-Semitism,” said Pantell. “As such, Jews in Sweden are afraid to express their Jewishness and their Zionism in public.”

Israeli-Swedish relations have been especially strained since Sweden became the first EU member in Western Europe to officially recognize a Palestinian Authority state in October 2014, and since Swedish Foreign Minister Margot Wallström recently declared the Israel-PA conflict to be a causal factor in the Paris terror attacks of November 2015.

“The Swedish media and governmental institutions are decidedly anti-Zionist and pro-BDS and we have already received death and bomb threats that have attempted to disrupt the rallies,” noted Pantell.

“However, this is our fifth rally and there has been a noticeable amelioration in the attitude of the Swedish collective towards Zionism,” Pantell claimed. “It is especially noticeable this year through the participation of Ebba Busch Thor, a member of the Christian Democrats Party in the Swedish parliament.”

A number of Israeli political figures attended the rally, such as the Israeli Ambassador to Stockholm Isaac Bachman and Yesh Atid party chairman MK Yair Lapid. Lapid had also been involved in the March 2016 pro-Israel rally outside the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in Geneva as part of his efforts against the BDS movement.

The Seattle Mideast Awareness Campaign (SeaMAC) has launched a new ad on buses in San Francisco with the slogan “Boycott Israel Until Palestinians Have Equal Rights.” The ad is not clear as to which Palestinians are bereft of those equal rights: are they the ones being repressed by Hamas that steals their charity funds, diverting them to luxury homes for Hamas bigwigs and to terror tunnels aimed at kidnapping and murdering Israeli civilians? Are they the ones struggling to make it under an incompetent, corrupt PLO-run Palestinian Authority, that hasn’t run a national election in almost ten years? Or are they Israeli Arabs, with a representation in the Knesset that matches their 20% of the population, democratic freedoms and access to higher education? Or is it too much to ask a bus ad for specifics?

The ambiguous bus ad will run for four weeks, according to a SeaMAC press release. The ad includes the slogan “Stop Anti-Boycott Legislation” and features a list of historic boycotts, including the Boston Tea Party, segregated buses in Montgomery in 1956, and South Africa’s apartheid regime.

“Advocates for Israel’s apartheid are trying to persuade state and national legislatures to outlaw the right to boycott against social injustice in Israel,” said Edward Mast, volunteer board member of SeaMAC. Of course, Israel does not have an apartheid system — the Arab member of the Supreme Court would never approve of it, nor would the thousands of Arab students in Israel’s universities, thousands of Arab doctors and lawyers, and Israeli Arabs from all walks of life who participate in a free Israeli society. It’s not a problem-free society, but compared to the neighborhood it is pretty impressive.

Mast, however, sees attempts to seek legal means of stopping his campaign of lies as an “attack on free speech … one more example of demanding special treatment for the State of Israel.”

SeaMAC ran the slogan “Boycott Israel Until Palestinians Have Equal Rights” on buses in Washington, D.C. and three other cities in 2015, but the same ad was taken off a billboard in Chicago. in early 2016. SeaMAC has also been blocked from running anti-Israel bus ads in Seattle, Washington.

American-Israeli journalist Jeffrey Goldberg (New Yorker, Atlantic Monthly) is probably the closest thing today to a traditional, secular Jewish American journalist, hated equally by the right and the left. His view of Israel is sober, and he often gets the Israeli mindset more accurately than most American fellow travelers. On Monday night, Goldberg lost it over a story in the English language Ha’aretz, which has been consistently further out there on leftwing planet than its Hebrew language sister.

Written by Hasia Diner and Marjorie N. Feld, the article included blatantly hostile statements, reminiscent of drivel issued by Neturei Karta and any of the varieties of “American Rabbis for Peace” groups out there. Taking into account that Diner is a professor of American Jewish history at New York University, and Feld is professor of history at Babson College, we should probably sit shivah on our expectations of sane evaluations of Israeli history emanating from those two learned ladies.

“The death of vast numbers of Jewish communities as a result of Zionist activity has impoverished the Jewish people, robbing us of these many cultures that have fallen into the maw of Israeli homogenization,” was one of Hasia Diner’s paragraphs, fit for a KKK Wizard.

And, another from Diner: “I feel a sense of repulsion when I enter a synagogue in front of which the congregation has planted a sign reading, ‘We Stand With Israel.’ I just do not go, and avoid many Jewish settings where I know Israel will loom large as an icon of identity.”

Hasn’t she heard the adage, If you don’t have nice things to say, don’t say anything?

Marjorie Feld, who wrote that “in all facets of my very Jewish upbringing I was immersed in Holocaust education,” taught her readers that “the founding of Israel was the Nakba, the great catastrophe, for Palestinians, with ethnic cleansing, destruction, and no right of return.”

Goldberg’s distancing himself from the rabid Ha’aretz crowd (in English — the Hebrew version may be aggressive, but it’s still quality journalism, just remove the attitude and you can figure out what really happened — the way folks used to do with Pravda, or Yisrael Hayom) was met with nasty responses from the nuts community.

Peter Kofod tweeted that Goldberg was “Warmonger/former prison guard who lied to cover up, is also an idiot re anti-Semitism”

He provided a link to a website called S.H.A.M.E. Project, which drags out the cherry picked negative comments from its target’s body of work, sans context (because context requires deliberation and examination, comparison and evaluation, which, like, take time). If the reader is interested, the disgusting hatchet job is up there.

Goldberg tweeted back: “I like a lot of the people at Haaretz, and many of its positions, but the cartoonish anti-Israelism and anti-Semitism can be grating.”

Thereafter, Goldberg entered a string of alley fights with short knives:

Seth Frantzman (Jerusalem Post) rehashed an old grievance: “Jeffrey Goldberg has accused me of ‘enabling baseless hatred’ when I’ve done more than most to help victims and refugees.”

Goldberg: “It’s difficult to acknowledge that you enable sinat hinam. I understand.”

Lisa Goldman: “Are there any women participating in Jeffrey Goldberg’s rumble in the jungle over Haaretz’s allegedly Jew hating ways? Right. Thought not.” Ah, discrimination, because the two history hate mongers were gals, and Goldberg is part of the patriarchy. She also suggested: “Haaretz friends: Jeffrey Goldberg is not that important. Clearly anyone who tweets it’s an *anti-Semitic* paper is an anti-intellectual.”

He works for the Atlantic, lady. You work for 972 Mag, a website only a shaheed’s mother can love.

At some point, Goldberg became entangled in a one-on-one with Ha’aretz publisher Amos Schoken, and tweeted a message of peace: “There’s a lot of good journalism in Ha’aretz, however. Mixed in with the nutty stuff.”

Schocken tweeted: “I wouldn’t call it nutty. I don’t agree with it, I think they ignore history of the Jews,” adding, “But when Israel has such problem in American universities, how can one ignore it?”

To which Goldberg snapped back: “Amos, what you don’t understand is that the problems on campus are caused in part by crap like this.”

Schocken: “Maybe it adds but it is a position of two university teachers, it has to be argued with, not discarded.” Ha’aretz is probably the only newspaper with decent-distribution in Israel that devotes equal if not more coverage to the Nakba point of view, versus the normative Israeli narrative.

At which point Ami Kaufman, co-founder of 972 Mag, tweeted, “How ‘Trump-esque’ to call a legitimate position ‘crap’ and ‘nutty.'” Then: “Israeli policies cause ‘problems’ on campuses, not the opeds that critique them.” Spoken like a man who never faced crowd-wilding by SJP thugs on his way to the dorms.

Goldberg: “That is not an accurate statement. Visit campuses, talk to university presidents, and learn.”

Goldberg tweeted a response to Ha’aretz correspondent Anshel Pfeffer: “Look, when neo-Nazis are emailing me links to Ha’aretz op-eds declaring Israel to be evil, I’m going to take a break, sorry.” He included a link to a column by Gideon Levy titled, “Stop living in denial, Israel is an evil state.” Gideon Levy is that shaheed’s mother’s other favorite read.

Minister Gilad Erdan (Likud) entered the fray, quite unexpectedly, praising Goldberg: “Wow. No words.” Truth be told, a tweet on the back from a Likud cabinet minister was probably the last thing Goldberg needed at that moment, and he scolded Erdan: “Thanks for the retweet, but I’d prefer it if you spent more time protecting democracy in Israel.”

Gilad Erdan is Minister of Public Security, so, yes, he is in a good position to mess up or protect democracy in Israel. But why S.H.A.M.E. a man for being nice to you?

Yes, you can get the boy out of the red diaper summer camp, but not vice versa .

Nearly 100 more incidents of anti-Semitism occurred on campus during the first six months of 2016 compared with the first six months of 2015, according to AMCHA Initiative’s mid-year study released today. In addition, calls for Israel’s elimination on campus tripled, and that expression highly correlated with actions that harm Jewish students.

“The growing problem of campus anti-Semitism is no doubt a serious threat facing the Jewish community, but this disturbing and dangerous spike and the bolder, more brazen, methods of those perpetrating this hate are particularly alarming,” cautioned Tammi Rossman-Benjamin, AMCHA Initiative director and co-founder.

The study, which examined anti-Semitic activity from January to June 2016 on more than 100 public and private colleges and universities with the largest Jewish undergraduate populations, found that 287 anti-Semitic incidents occurred at 64 schools during that time period, reflecting a 45% increase from the 198 incidents reported in the first six months of 2015.

The study also revealed the following disturbing trends:

Suppression of speech approximately doubled from 2015 to 2016. In 2016, 14 incidents that restricted Jewish students’ civil rights by suppressing their speech, blocking their movement or hindering their assembly were found on 12 campuses. These incidents reflect a significant increase from the first half of 2015, in which eight incidents of suppression occurred on seven campuses.

Expression denying Israel’s right to exist nearly tripled from 2015 to 2016 and correlated with actions intended to harm Jewish students. The first half of 2016 saw an almost three-fold increase in the number of campus incidents that contained expression opposing the existence of Israel, a recognized form of anti-Semitism by global leaders such as President Obama, Pope Francis and the prime ministers of Canada, Britain and France and the world’s preeminent scholars of anti-Semitism. There were 43 such incidents in 2016 compared to 15 during the first half of 2015. In fact, expression opposing the existence of Israel highly correlated with conduct that targeted Jewish students for harm.

Divestment resolutions are fueling anti-Semitism. In 2016, the student governments of 10 schools in the study considered anti-Israel divestment resolutions. Of these 10 schools, eight showed the largest increase in anti-Semitism from 2015 to 2016. Conversely, seven of the nine schools in the 2015 study that considered or voted on divestment resolutions showed a marked decrease in anti-Semitic activity in the first half of 2016 when no divestment resolution was considered. The two schools that did not decrease in anti-Semitic activity hosted discussions and votes on divestment.

Anti-Zionism, particularly Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) activities, anti-Zionist student groups, and faculty boycotters, remain the strongest predictors of anti-Semitic incidents on campus. Consistent with 2015, this study revealed that anti-Semitism was twice as likely to occur on campuses where BDS was present, eight times more likely to occur on campuses with at least one active anti-Zionist student group such as SJP, and six times more likely to occur on campuses with one or more faculty boycotters. In fact, schools with more faculty boycotters and more BDS activity tended to have more incidents of anti-Semitic activity.

Schools to watch in 2016: the schools with the largest increase from 2015 to 2016 are Columbia University, Vassar College, University of Chicago, NYU, University of Minnesota, University of Massachusetts (Amherst), University of Wisconsin (Madison), University of Florida and the University of Washington.

“Instead of just boycotting Israel, the anti-Zionists are now boycotting Jewish students,” stated Professor Leila Beckwith, AMCHA co-founder and one of the study’s lead researchers. “Sadly, all too often it is not debate but hate. The lines between political discussions on Israeli policy and discrimination toward Jewish students are being blurred. Anti-Zionists are attempting to harm, alienate, and ostracize Jewish students; it is Jewish students’ civil rights that are being trampled. To properly address this rise in anti-Jewish bigotry, universities must adopt a proper definition of contemporary anti-Semitism and use it to educate the campus community about the distinct line between criticism of Israeli policies and discrimination against Jewish people.”

The report concluded with recommendations for university administrators including (1) adopting a definition of anti-Semitism that identifies all forms of anti-Jewish bigotry, including when criticism of Israel crosses the line into anti-Semitism; (2) allocating resources to educate students and faculty about contemporary forms of anti-Semitism and anti-Jewish discrimination; and (3) establishing clear guidelines about free speech protected under the First Amendment and conduct which violates others’ civil rights, including disrupting or shutting down campus events and restricting free speech and right of assembly.